it came back adorned with a band-aid that matched the one sterling wore and an inscription from the batter. >> justin turner wrote, "to john, no matter where you sit at a ball game, you're never safe." >> how nice is that? >> reporter: i'm very impressed how he used no swear words. >> ow! ow! ow! >> reporter: three "ows" and he's still not out. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> ow, ow, ow! >> put that man in the broadcasting hall of fame. way to go. thanks very much for joining me this evening. i'm jim acosta. see you here tomorrow night starting at 5:00 eastern. next, anderson cooper, trump indicted. a look at capitol hill. enjoy, see you tomorrow.

welcome to "the whole story." i'm anderson cooper. the indictment of former president donald trump marks the first time in history a former president has faced federal charges. this is the second indictment for the former president, who was criminally charged by a manhattan grand jury in march on more than 30 counts of business fraud. now facing 37 federal charges relating to classified documents from his time in office that were uncovered by federal agents. a special counsel has been investigating this case since november of last year. he's pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. what makes the situation even more extraordinary is that mr. trump is also the current front-runner in the republican party for the 2024 election, which means he could be taking on president joe biden, while a special counsel appointed by the attorney general is working to convict him. trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. over the next hour, our pamela brown lays out everything we know about this case and takes us through the twists and turns that brought us to this moment.

>> i'm an innocent man, i'm an innocent person. >> donald trump is posting on his own social media site that he has been indicted. tonight, a former president is facing federal charges. for the first time in u.s. history. >> this is a very dark day in america. >> our country is going to hell. >> tuesday, you're going to have the opportunity for our court system to do its job. and it could be a circus. because he may as well be organizing another january 6th. >> this is warfare for the law, and we can't let it happen. >> what we've seen over the last several years is the weaponization of the department of justice against a former president.

>> you have a document in front of you, "united states of america versus donald j. trump." >> this is a bombshell. >> today, an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. >> we have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. >> january 2021, moving day at the white house. but not every box should have been shipped out of d.c. >> this was there coordinated effort to collect boxes of documents that had some level of interest to the former president, donald trump. now, what the reason for that is, we don't yet know.

>> according to the 38-count federal indictment, president donald trump was involved in the packing process. and so was white house staffer walt nauta, who had joined trump at mar-a-lago as a personal aide. >> nauta was donald trump's valet, his body man. he's the other defendant in this case. the two coconspirators who worked together knowingly to try to, first of all, hide the boxes from the lawyers and doj and the grand jury, and to lie about it. >> reporter: once at mar-a-lago, for some boxes, the white and gold ballroom was the first stop of many in the months to come. then the business center. then a bathroom and shower. then a storage room near the liquor supply cabinet. but why were these boxes from the white house stored in so many different locations throughout mar-a-lago?

and what did these boxes contain? >> we're not talking about a few documents that were misplaced and ended up in the president's possession. we're talking about literally hundreds of cartons filled with records. cartons stacked up to the ceiling in the storage room. cartons stacked to the ceiling in the bathroom. in the shower. boxes in the president's closet, in his office. >> the chronology is so important because it tells you what were the intentional acts. when you lay that out in a timeline, you lay out a case for intent. >> reporter: according to the indictment, one day nauta found several of trump's boxes fallen and their contents spilled, including a document marked "secret." he took two photos given the fact that nauta was really the body man of the then president donald trump, he was likely very

aware of what the requirements would have been to have documents handed over, to have them in the proper hands of those who were the actual custodian of these records. >> reporter: taking secret documents out of the white house and storing them in an unsecured location like mar-a-lago is at the heart of the indictment. but there's more. >> in the indict, prosecutors allege there were two instances where trump shared classified information in person with people who did not have security clearances. >> reporter: in july of 2021, the former president talked about a highly confidential document he took with him from the white house about a potential attack on iran. >> this is a meeting at his bedminster golf club. present for this meeting were at least two of his aides and two people working on an autobiography of his former white house chief of staff, mark meadows.

he knew he was being recorded. >> in this recording, this was back in july 2021, i just found, isn't this amazing? this totally wins my case. except it is, like, highly confidential, secret, this is secret information. >> the second instance is him sharing a classified map with a representative from his political action committee. now, we didn't previously know about this particular incident, but clearly prosecutors do, and these are two things that come up very high in the indictment. clearly very significant to the investigation. >> reporter: trump's boasting came months after a lawyer with the national archives and records administration began seeking return of the documents in this email. quote, there are also now certain paper text call records that we cannot account for. for example, the original correspondence between president trump and north korean leader kim jong-un were not transferred to us. it is also our understanding

that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the white house over the course of president trump's larls year in office and have not been transferred to the national archives. >> so a law called "the presidential records act" says that presumably all records made during a president's time in office are property of the government. >> this was a widely known presidential records act. throughout the entire course of the administration, it would have been reminded on people, incumbent on people to do something about it, and surely they would have known. >> the archives was remarkably patient with the trump team throughout. they negotiated with the trump team for months and months on end. >> reporter: on multiple occasions, beginning in june 2021, the national archives warned trump through his representatives that if he did not comply, it would refer the matter of the missing records to the department of justice.

in october 2021, multiple sources say national archives lawyer gary stern sought the intervention of another trump attorney. that fall, a top official in trump's orbit says they were concerned and warned people not to touch the boxes out of fear that sensitive material could be exposed to those without the proper clearance. >> we're talking about documents of all classification. some of them are confidential, some of them are secret, some that are top secret. these are documents that relate to the u.s. national defense. they are our nuclear capabilities, our nuclear vulnerabilities, the nuclear and military capabilities of some of the countries that pose threats to the united states. these are the most sensitive documents that the u.s. government has. >> reporter: what else did these documents contain? and did the former president jeopardize national security?

>> we see there is a top secret document that's marked "five eyes." reckless disregard for the nation's sensitive, classified, essential intelligence. ♪ ♪ let your love shine. book an appointment now with a bridal jewelry expert. at zales, the diamond store.

the january 6th committee firing a warning shot after mark meadows said he would no longer appear for a deposition. >> reporter: december 7th, 2021. almost a year after he left washington, d.c., former president trump was still making news.

>> trump's social media platform, truth social, is largely still undefined and is already facing serious scrutiny. >> reporter: but that same day, down in mar-a-lago, something major was unfolding, hidden from the public eye. trump aide walt nauta, who would later be indicted alongside trump, walked into the storage room at mar-a-lago. >> and he finds boxes spilled on the floor, including one document that is labeled "secret." he takes a photograph of it and sends it to another mar-a-lago employee. and what the prosecutors say is visible in one of those photographs is a document that they actually base one of the charges on. >> by looking closely at the photograph, we see there is a top secret document that's marked "five eyes." that is so sensitive, we can only share it with our very

closest intelligence allies. >> just seeing sensitive information that was only meant for a handful of our closest allies just strewn about the bottom of a storage closet, that was truly remarkable. >> reckless disregard for the nation's sensitive, classified, essential intelligence. >> reporter: just over a month after nauta took that photo, a long-awaited development. >> the national archives began negotiating with donald trump's team in mid-2021. finally, in january 2022, donald trump's team turned over 15 boxes. >> we're told these were pretty disorganized boxes of materials, and within those boxes was a mix of presidential records, which are any documents that are created during your administration, and classified materials. >> the fbi would soon determine that those boxes contained 30

top secret documents. 98 marked "secret." the remainder of the 197 documents were tagged as "confidential" according to the indictment. those findings prompted the national archives to reach out to the department of justice to investigate in february 2022. >> that's when the criminal investigation begins, because the intel community, the fbi, justice department, gets called to take possession of those classified records and to start looking into whether there was some sort of improper mishandling. >> reporter: then on may 11th, 2022, trump is subpoenaed. >> that's when the justice department says, turn over everything with classified markings on it in your possession. no matter where it is, find it, get it back to us by the end of june. >> reporter: enter evan corcoran, a former assistant u.s. attorney now representing trump. >> evan corcoran was one of the initial attorneys who came in to

respond to the initial subpoena. and he conducted the search of mar-a-lago. >> reporter: corcoran would become a pivotal figure in the case against the former president. later, his testimony played a key role in the indictment of trump and his aide, walt nauta. >> the striking thing about corcoran's role here is just how unusual it is. >> he made audio recordings of his own notes. >> he contemporaneously took a lot of notes about his conversations with a client, which makes one think that perhaps corcoran was worried about something coming back later about his actions here. >> a very rare thing happened in this case, which is, prosecutors got to break through the attorney-client privilege. >> prosecutors convinced the judge that, look, evan corcoran's advice in this situation may have been used in furtherance of a crime, and his notes have now become a key piece of evidence. >> reporter: on may 23rd, 2022, corcoran meets with his client. that's 12 days after the subpoena was issued.

now upon receiving this subpoena, the former president confers with his attorney, evan corcoran, and suggests that perhaps they should just not comply with this. or lie to the fbi, saying that they have no more documents. >> at one point, trump says something to one of his attorneys along the lines of, i don't want people going through my boxes. >> as a criminal defense attorney, when you have a client that receives a grand jury subpoena, they have a lot of questions. >> reporter: attorney tim parliatori represented trumps in the classified documents case. he left the legal team weeks before the indictment. >> they will ask those questions in the confidential attorney-client communication realm of, do we have to comply with this? do they have the power to really make us do this? wouldn't it be better to give them nothing? >> the president's lawyers and supporters are going to try to minimize this, because somebody who is facing a subpoena is going to ask his lawyers for advice. where this crosses the line is

where he tells his lawyer, why don't we just tell them there's nothing here? according to prosecutors, he had gone through did these boxes himself. so at the time that he is telling his lawyers to just say, we don't have anything here, he knows full well that there are classified documents that need to be returned to the federal government. >> reporter: after that conversation on may 23rd, 2022, trump and his attorneys agree that the storage room boxes would be searched for confidential documents on june 2nd. but something strange, perhaps even criminal, happened. at trump's direction, aide walt nauta moved the documents. >> the 64 boxes were moved to the former president's residence. his private residence. inside the club. >> the key here is, why did you move the documents in the first place after there was a subpoena? >> reporter: according to the

indictment, on june 2nd, just hours before corcoran conducts his search, less than half of those boxes are returned from trump's residence back to the storage room. >> there are 30 boxes that walt nauta and another person moved back into the storage room. and then evan corcoran does his search. he finds 38 documents with classification markings on it. >> it appears that walt moving these boxes was part of an effort not only to conceal documents from investigators, but also from trump's own lawyers. >> if you moved them hoping to evade, somehow, the scrutiny of the department of justice, a federal grand jury, the national archives, you're laying out a case for something illegal. >> the thing that surprised me the most about the indictment were the details of the alleged movement of boxes by walt prior to evan's search. the scope that they are alleging

there and the backup of texts, supposedly, as well as video, that's something that's far beyond what we had seen. if that's true, then that's a problem that the new legal team is going to have to deal with. >> reporter: after his search of the storage room on june 2nd, corcoran seals the 38 classified documents for delivery to the archives and heads to the mar-a-lago dining room to meet with his client. >> trump asked, "did you find anything of interest?" according to corcoran's notes, trump made a plucking motion, suggesting that if corcoran had found something problematic, perhaps it should be pluck out of the batch of documents that were being turned over. >> reporter: the day after, on june 3rd, 2022, trump's legal team submitted false statements. >> you look at the indictment, it seems like evan corcoran and some of the other lawyers were sort of used as dupes by trump. what it appears is, trump had his people move documents in and

out of the storage room so that corcoran would only find certain things, then certify to doj, "this is all i found." corcoran was part of a group of lawyers who put together this certification saying, we've done a diligent search of mar-a-lago and these 38 documents are all that we found. that's responsive. turned out there was 100-plus more classified documents. the question is, who knew that that certification was false? coming up, federal agents search mar-a-lago. so caramel swirl is always there for the taking. i brought in ensure max protein with 30g of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uh... here i'll take that. -everyone: woo hoo! ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar. enter the nourishing moments giveaway for a chance to win $10,000.

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♪ i'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. >> reporter: this was donald trump nearly seven years ago. >> we can't have someone in the oval office who doesn't understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified. >> reporter: on the campaign trail -- >> everyone screams, lock her up, lock her up. you know what? i'm starting to agree with you. >> reporter: trump vows to punish hillary clinton over her use of a private email server. >> one of the first things we must do is to enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the

handling of classified information. >> reporter: once in the oval office, then president trump signed a bill into law that upgraded the crime of wrongly moving classified material from a misdemeanor to a felony. >> it's a great iron 90 right now, the fact that he may be held to account for an elevated crime he initiated. >> reporter: the fbi called clinton extremely careless in her mishandling of classified information but found no criminal intent. >> no charges are appropriate in this case. >> reporter: trump's obsession with the possibility that other officials would mishandle classified documents intensifies. >> i'd like to begin by reading a statement from the president. >> reporter: in 2018, trump revoked the security clearance of john brennan, the former director of the cia. the former president citing his responsibility to protect the nation's classified information. >> the issue of mr. brennan's security clearance raises larger

questions about the practice of former officials maintaining access to our nation's most sensitive secrets long after their time in government has ended. >> the strangest part about this all? this is all a self-inflicted wound. all he had to do was return the documents. >> reporter: remember on june 3rd, 2022, a grand jury subpoena demanded trump hand over all classified documents in his possession. but instead, trump's attorney provided the fbi with only 38. >> surveillance footage at mar-a-lago has become such a key piece of evidence. >> reporter: a month later, on july 6th, in response to another subpoena by the fbi, representatives of the trump organization handed over a hard drive containing surveillance footage. >> there is a storage room at mar-a-lago that trump is essentially telling his attorney, evan corcoran, all white house records will be kept

inside this storage room because they had to respond to a subpoena. >> reporter: but that wasn't true. >> investigators obtain surveillance video that shows boxes being moved out of the storage room, which they had promised they were going to secure. te were going to lock it. then fewer boxes being moved back in. but it wasn't just based on video. they had an informant who led them to believe that there was more documents to be found. >> reporter: investigators obtained a search warrant. >> the judge had looked at the evidence they had gathered up to that point in time and said, yes, it is lawful for you to go into mar-a-lago. >> doj proved to a judge that they had probable cause of three crimes. two of them are now charged in the indictment. the two that are charged in the indictment are willful mishandling of defense information, and obstruction of j j justice. >> all he had to do was return the documents. i'm not supposed to have them, here you go.

>> mar-a-lago is based, really, in the heart of the exclusive town of palm beach, florida. it's a stunning piece of property. it's sort of sandwiched between the intercoastal waterway and the atlantic ocean. it's surrounded by palm trees, very lush acreage. it is really on the edge of what is commonly called billionaires row. home to some of the largest houses that you've ever seen in the country. >> breaking news we're following right now -- >> we have the details just coming in as i speak -- >> reporter: august 8th, 2022. >> there were boxes of items taken during this search. i was reporting from mar-a-lago. donald trump was not here today. he was in new york city. we learned that about two dozen fbi agents and technicians had shown up to serve this search warrant and search the property of mar-a-lago. they were there for hours on end, gl room to room. >> they're not wearing any of

the usual fbi raid jackets that they typically wear for such a search. they show up in suits and ties. all of this was to try to understate this, to make as little noise as possible. >> it's terrible. they're physically trying to destroy trump. >> there were certainly a large amount of supporters of donald trump outside, and of course they were clashing with protesters, many of whom were already shouting "lock him up." it was quite a scene. >> that's right, another day in paradise. this was a strange day. >> reporter: trump issued a statement reading in part that the execution of the search warrant was, quote, an attack by radical left democrats who desperately don't want me to run for president in 2024. >> my father has worked so collaboratively with them for months. in fact, the lawyer that's been working on this was told he was shocked. "i had such an amazing relationship with these people, all of a sudden on no notice they send 20 cars and 30

agents?" >> i could not believe some of the pictures that we saw. some would argue that the documents were treated kind of like a discarded sock at the end of the day. we're talking about matters of national security strewn about, available for the prying eye to look at in ballrooms, in bathrooms. >> during that time, at least according to the indictment, this were more than 150 social events. weddings, fund-raisers, movie premieres, you name it. a lot of people coming in and out of the mar-a-lago club while these documents were allegedly there. and we just have to wonder who might have known that these documents were there, who had access to them. did they even know what they were looking at if they saw them? >> i'm confident there are spy

handlers around the world who are beating themselves on the head today, wishing that they had sent their own agents into mar-a-lago. it is truly a spy's dream. it's a soft target. we now know it was replete with national defense information. to think that it was all there for the taking, for anyone with the energy and the determination to go look for it, it's just shocking. >> trump is charged with 31 different counts of willful retention of defense information. one count is attached to each of 31 different documents. 21 of those documents were recovered by the fbi during that august search warrant. >> reporter: are there more documents yet to be uncovered, or perhaps destroyed? >> this doesn't appear in the indictment of donald trump. >> reporter: after the august 8th raid, investigators continue to request surveillance footage. >> there is this mysterious pool draining. a maintenance worker at mar-a-lago, a person who is not charged with any crime, he drains the pool in october of

2022. if you ask people in florida, it's highly unusual to drain a pool. when the draining of the pool happens, the water from the pool somehow finds its way into an i.t. room that has surveillance tapes and footage kept within it. so the technical equipment, the stuff that would be really hurt badly by water in that room. so it is not clear if anything was lost, if there are gaps in any of the surveillance tapes. when we return -- >> we have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. >> who is overseeing trump's criminal investigation? >> he's an experienced prosecutor. >> he has a reputation. >> reporter: and later -- >> if you thought this election cycle was going to be all about the policy issues and nothing about political baggage, you've got another think coming. ♪ discover the power of the gelflex grid.

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we're being told that jack smith and his team are coming out. >> reporter: when special counsel jack smith finally stepped up to the mic on june 9th, it was a highly anticipated moment. >> good afternoon. >> i wanted to get a sense of who he was. who was this sort of mysterious figure in the shadows overseeing such an important case? >> our laws that protect national defense information are critical. >> oh, that's what he sounds

like. because he has been silent. he has avoided the cameras, by and large. >> reporter: hard to imagine that one of the most talked about figures in this indictment was largely unknown until seven months ago. >> we're getting an announcement from attorney general merrick garland set to appoint a special counsel. >> nobody knew his name. as a matter of fact, we thought the name was made up, john smith. where'd you find this guy from? >> reporter: they found him november 2022. the hague in the netherlands. the home for the international criminal court. >> jack smith went to work as a war crimes prosecutor in the hague. that shows a certain commitment to justice and the capacity to go after very bad, very usually powerful people. >> based solely on the evidence and the law, we ask that you find the accused guilty of each of the crimes charged. >> shortly after he is appointed, they win a conviction for a leader of a militant faction in kosovo.

>> mr. mustafa is criminally responsible -- >> the thing that he had been working on for some time finally comes to fruition, and here he gets this phone call from the justice department saying, you've got to put that aside, you've got to come back and do this pretty difficult and perhaps a little thankless job. >> reporter: smith had left a post with the justice department to take this job at the hague and reportedly hesitated at the idea of coming back. >> he's having a pretty good life, living in the netherlands, a pretty prominent position over there. >> that made him attractive for the job. >> jack smith was the perfect person. he's not been in the united states in recent years. apart from the politics and everything that's been roiling our justice department and our politics here in the united states. >> today, i signed an order -- >> reporter: garland made it official on november 18th. >> mr. smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an

even-handed and urgent manner. >> reporter: a terrible bicycle accident that delayed his move back to the u.s. until early january 2023. so smith got right to work from the netherlands, assembling a team of more than 20, and launching a seven-month-long investigation via zoom. >> the attorney general made it clear that when you point to jack smith, that he would move this investigation forward without delay and that is exactly what's happened. >> it doesn't surprise me that he would rise to that challenge and take on that responsibility. >> reporter: alan veingrad, smith's supervisor at the u.s. attorney's office in new york city in 1999, said he stood out since day one. >> jack struck me as a smart, experienced, nettle, hard-nosed, relentless, thorough investigator and a great trial lawyer. >> reporter: known as a tenacious investigator and dogged federal prosecutor, smith then moved on to the justice department in 2010. >> he ran the public integrity

section of the justice department that handles some of the most sensitive political corruption cases. >> reporter: and potentially most difficult to prosecute, high-profile defendants with deep pockets. >> to head the public integrity section means that you are well aware of political optics and you know how to navigate a way to build a case, to leave no stone unturned. all with an eye towards ensuring people view the investigation as nonpolitical. >> jack smith does have a bit of a mixed record. several of his highest-profile cases ended up failing. he indicted the governor of virginia, then the supreme court threw the case out. he was involved in the indictment of senator bob menendez from new jersey which ended in acquittal, then that case got thrown out. he was involved in the prosecution of john edwards, former presidential candidate. that also failed. >> bringing in ambitious cases. they don't want to lose, but that is one of the things that happens to the justice department sometimes. >> reporter: losses and failures

that team trump has jumped on, tried to exploit, and some might say conflate. >> jack smith. he is a terrorist. he is a trump hater. >> president trump, he has a certain way about him, and the way that he describes people. his hyperbole about jack smith certainly is his interpretation of a prosecutor with a career of overstepping, of having convictions overturned, and things like that. >> it goes to show you, it doesn't matter what your resume is. if you're investigating someone like donald trump, if you're living in this very politicized era, you're going to get accused of being political. and that's exactly what happened. everything was thrown at him. >> reporter: smith didn't take the bait. >> he only has said a few sentences to us outside of court. you let your evidence speak for itself. >> he didn't want to be the focus of this investigation. the only pictures we had were

him in this robe that they wear at the war crimes tribunal. and we begged the justice department to give us another picture so we could show it on television. and he politely declined to sit for a new photograph. >> he is apparently going to maintain this, speak softly and carry a big indictment approach to the case. i would expect that he's had the benefit of learning from his predecessors. >> reporter: like recent special counsel robert mueller. >> it's finally here, robert mueller testifies today. >> robert mueller had that disastrous time before congress testifying about what his investigation found. >> the finding indicates that the president was not -- that the president was not excu exculpated. >> reporter: or jim comey, former fbi chief.

>> although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information -- >> they wanted someone like jack smith, who was going to have a much lower profile. somebody who was going to put his nose to the grindstone, help the team that was already doing the work. >> we very much look forward to presenting our case. >> so to hear him finally speak surprised many. really unusual to see special counsel make a public statement like this. >> many people might be enticed to, in that role, make sure everyone knows who they are. almost be drunk with the power of it and wanting to be out in the forefront, and hey, look at me. the fact that he didn't seem to revel in it and wanted the indictment to speak for itself might buttress his credibility. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: despite all efforts by the former president to tear him down. >> jack smith. what do you think his name used to be? i don't know. jack smith. sounds so innocent. he's deranged.

>> if you were to think about, on the one hand, jack smith did not use the podium or a bully pulpit in any way. contrast that to the person that's one of the defendants in this case. somebody who has honed his skills in being able to use these platforms to act as a kind of marionette, to pull the strings on different narratives. what a contrast. i wonder how that's going to play out? >> this case will follow jack smith around for the rest of his life. no matter how it comes out. coming up, will this case affect the former president's status as the republican front-runner for the 2024 election? or will his supporters double down on their candidate? satisfaction, abilityr and road-test evaluations... and the results are in. subaru is the twenty twenty-three best mainstream automotive brand, according to consumer reports. and subaru has seven consumer reports recommended models.

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mr. president, are you concerned about the trump indictment? >> as the justice department tried to convict the republican front runner on criminal charges, the president is staying out of it. >> i have never once, not one single time, suggested with the justice department should or should not do. i am honest. >> i think he really does believe that he has to stay out of those for the justice department to have legitimacy. after all, this is the prosecution of a person that is leading the candidate against him. >> reporter: but some say that biden is weaponizing has justice department against his likely opponent in 2024.

>> they treated trump differently than they treat others and it did not have to be this way. this is going to disrupt the nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all. >> reporter: desantis is attacking the doj, but not the former president. >> we will, once and for all, and weaponization under my role. >> reporter: asa hutchinson is the only one calling on trump to end his campaign. >> these are serious charges that merit serious consideration by the people. >> reporter: pence said that trump is being treated unfairly . >> this idea of presenting trump is a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous. he has been a victim in the past but he is not a victim here. he was totally wrong about

having the right to have those documents. those are among the most sensitive secrets the country has. >> reporter: a trump lawyer talked about trumps state of mind on abc. >> he is a pretty resilient guy. he is a pretty tough person so, he is not crumpling in fear. >> as far as the joke of an indictment, it is a horrible thing. it is a horrible thing for this country. i have been indicted in twice in a couple of months. i have been a very successful businessman and we never had the word indictment. these people are conmen. >> republican presidential candidate nikki haley reacted early saying, "this is not how

justice should be pursued in our country. the american people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards, and the politics. but after having time to digest the detailed unsealed indictment , she is singing a slightly different tune. >> if this indictment is true. if what it says is actually the case, president trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. >> reporter: republican presidential candidate tim scott said this. >> what we have seen over the last several years is the weaponization of the department of justice against a former president. >> but then, he later said this. >> this is a serious case with serious allegations but in america, you are still innocent until proven guilty. >> other republican challengers of trump started talking thank you for.

>> a highly sensitive classified material could have fallen into the wrong hands. that jeopardizes national security and puts at risk men and women of the armed forces. >> if you thought this election cycle was going to be about the policy issues and nothing about political baggage, the you have another thing coming. >> this will be front and center. he will fund raise against it. he is going to attack the institutions. it is not something that prosecutors are comfortable with when they are trying to do their jobs. >> i think the trump legal strategy is going to be a page from his own playbook. try to kill the messenger. undermine the credibility of those that he perceives are attacking him. deflect and disparage. encourage people to look at this as part of the collective. >> the indictments alone are going to start to peel off moderate folks who think that

even if i like these policies, it is too much of a distraction. nobody can face up to four or five criminal trials while trying to run the country. >> reporter: from a legal standpoint. >> this indictment will do nothing to stop them from trying to run for office. there is nothing in our laws that would prevent a person that has been convicted or imprisoned from serving as president. >> reporter: he has been indicted twice. and twice impeached. >> this is not part of the qualifications and criteria that the framers of the constitution contemplated as disqualifying. >> how this plays out could depend on who wins the election. >> if trump were to win the presidency and be convicted of the charges levied against him, we could be in some real constitutional quagmires that we have never seen before. >> trump might lose the election and in that case, at will. he might win the election and

be this sitting president again and there is no way there will be a trial of a sitting president or the conviction of a sitting president. >> if trump were to win the presidency he will pardon himself and perhaps a lot of other people that have been convicted. for another republican, if they win, i think they will pardon trump. >> reporter: if trump becomes president again, i think the presidency is doomed. >> reporter: on tuesday the trump motorcade took him to federal court in miami. >> the former president will be placed under arrest and will be fingerprinted electronically. >> todd is the lawyer that stood before the judge when he was asked to enter the plea. he said they enter a plea of not guilty. >> reporter: after traveling back to his golf club he said this about his day. >> today we witness the most

evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country. >> reporter: he has become the first former president to face criminal charges by the government he was once elected to leave. >> this indictment is remarkably well put together. it is clear and concise and every important assertion and allegation of fact is back up by a specific piece of evidence. by an email, text, photograph. these are not far-flung allegations. these are all backed up by hard evidence. >> reporter: no one should rejoice in the fact that a former president of this country has now been indicted. it is an awful notion to think about the substance of these claims and what it would mean to the people whose lives may be in peril if national security related information, if defense information is haphazardly handled,

disseminated, or available for people to see who do not wish us well. >> it raises the question of if it is good or bad for us to go forward with the prosecution of trump. >> people differ on this. i think it shows people of this country that the law really does not favor the rich and powerful but is applied equally to people. >> special counsel jack smith is not done investigating trump. he is looking at his attempt to block the certification of the election. he could face even more charges. we will see you next time on the whole story. thank you, for watching. he doesn't care what people think. [donald] when you're a star, you can do anything.